别再把拍照说成“ka-cha”啦，中英拟声词可不大一样！

听过Onomatopoeia这个词么？

读音是

【ˌɒnə(ʊ)matəˈpiːə】

【ˌɑnəˌmædəˈpiə】

或者

【ˌɑnəˌmɑdəˈpiə】

意思是“拟声词”

英语中的onomatopoeia与中文中的拟声词恐怕不太一样：

以照相机拍照时的拟声词为例，中文说“咔嚓”，英语里不是“ka-cha”（当然，我的一些朋友也能明白“ka-cha”的意思），而是click-click。

再比如汽车喇叭的拟声词，在中文里可能是“嘀嘀”（那个“xx出行”就是用的这个拟声词）或者“嘟嘟”，而在英语里不是“dee-dee”或者“doo-doo”，而是“honk-honk”或者“beep-beep”。

在我们的英语口语描述中，如果需要说到这些拟声词，让我们的口语表达更生动，我们可能需要知道下面这些英语的拟声词说法，并且把这些说法融入我们的口语描述中：

Well, the car going after mine semes to be in a hurry, as it goes honk-honk all the way. But since there’s only one lane in the direction we were going, neither of us could switch lanes. And at a traffic light, the driver finally had a chance to go ahead of me, and the car goes vroom-vroom, overtaking mine within about a second as the light turned green. 

The best part of the tour was probably on the train. The tourist train was the old steam-powered train for a purpose, and it goes chugga-chugga, chugga-chugga, and the sound just reminds my father—and many other tourists his age—of the old times. And every time when the train goes choo-choo, my father—the old man—was apparently excited.

Well, I used to be a morning person. And every weekday morning, when my phone alarm goes beep-beep, I could get up immediately. And the beep-beep sound was exciting even on weekends. But I’ve changed in the recent years, and I prefer the late start in the morning.

The beep-beep of our mobile phone can be either stressful or exciting, depending on whose message we are receiving. When a message pops up and it is from your boss, you may get stressed. When a message pops up and it is from a person you have a crush on, you may get a bit nervous but mostly excited.

Recent years have seen the exciting upgrade of China’s retail business, and the delivery service has made life so easy. This is how it work: our fingers go tap-tap-tap, and an order is placed via those grocery shopping apps, and what we do is simple: we just wait for the knock-knock of the door or the ding-dong—if the door has a bell. Then, things will arrive within an average time of 30 minutes. Thanks to the delivery service, life has become so effortless.

Well, the clock in the examination room goes tick-tock, tick-tock. And in such a quiet room, the tick-tock sound becomes so loud and so stressful. My thoughts kept being interrupted by the tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, and it just wouldn’t stop. Now, as I’m describing that to you, you know how annoying that was. That was just terrible.